Hertz is known for being an unethical and customer unfriendly company, plain and simple. Hertz has a history of having its customers arrested, accusing them of stealing cars when they didn’t. Hertz even had to pay $168 million for this behavior.
Even after that, there’s no shortage of Hertz behaving horribly, like calling the cops on a Puerto Rican for not being American. Here’s the latest example of Hertz’s questionable behavior…
In this post:
Hertz angry after customer drives 25K miles
There’s a video going viral on social media (it has been viewed millions of times since yesterday), showing an interaction between what appears to be a Hertz customer and a Hertz employee. Of course videos like this don’t tell the whole story, but it’s easy enough to figure out what’s going on, and it doesn’t seem like either side disagrees on the facts.
Long story short, it would appear that someone rented a Hertz car for a month, and the rental allowed unlimited miles. The man drove 25,000 miles on the car over the course of that month, and the agency wasn’t happy about it.
Given the number of miles driven, the Hertz representative stated that he would charge the man’s credit card an extra $10,000. As the interaction goes:
Hertz representative: “You need to leave, sir.”
Customer: “But you’re going to charge this to $10,000 to my credit?”
Hertz representative: “Yes.”
Customer: “When this literally, that’s not even allowed. I never signed…”
Hertz representative: “You show me where it says I can’t charge it.”
Customer: “Right here, it literally says I won’t get charged anything, it says miles allowed, free miles, it literally says to refer to this if there’s anything extra. I’ve never signed anything saying I can only go 100 miles a day, or anything like that, or that I would have to pay more.”
Hertz representative: “But you also never signed anything saying you were going to be allowed to drive 25,000 miles in a month.”
Customer: “No, unlimited is 100,000 miles.”
Hertz representative: “No it is not.”
The Hertz representative asks him to leave, and says that if he doesn’t leave, he’ll have the man arrested. But he also states that he’s going to charge the man $10,000, so it’s understandable that the customer wants to resolve that.
My take on this bizarre Hertz incident
First of all, the renter is absolutely correct — if you rent a car with unlimited miles, then you should be able to drive unlimited miles. If the limit is actually 100 miles per day, or anything else, then the contract should just state that to begin with.
The Hertz representative’s logic is hilariously backwards. The customer pointed out the contract stated he could drive unlimited miles, and he didn’t sign anything agreeing to pay extra if he drove a lot of miles. The response is that he also didn’t sign anything saying he would be allowed to drive 25,000 miles in a month.
Lol, wut? Maybe we have different definitions of “unlimited,” but I think he did actually sign a contract allowing him to drive that many miles.
I’ve looked through Hertz’s rental agreements, and there’s absolutely nothing that gives the company the right to charge you for miles if you have a rental that includes unlimited miles. Now, at least in the past, Hertz reserved the right to not rent to people who repeatedly put a large number of miles onto car.
But there’s a big difference between retroactively charging someone an arbitrary amount for driving too much when there was no limit, vs. refusing to do business with people in the future (which is the company’s right). So the renter is 100% in the right, based on everything we know.
That being said, how on earth did this guy drive 25,000 miles in a month?! That’s 833 miles per day, or an average of around 35 miles per hour, 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Or if you were to drive for 12 hours per day, it would be the equivalent of constantly going 70 miles per hour. This is like driving between New York and Los Angeles nine times. I really don’t understand?!
I can’t help but wonder if the car was used for some sort of commercial purposes, like as a ride share or food delivery service, or something? This would obviously violate the contract that exists with the rental car company, and it would presumably also mean that unauthorized people were driving the car.
However, the Hertz representative mentions that the violation was that the man drove too many miles, rather than that he’s believed to have misused the rental for purposes it wasn’t intended for.
I’m just genuinely confused here. You absolutely should be able to drive as many miles as you want on an unlimited rental. But also, how on earth do you actually drive that much?!
Bottom line
A Hertz representative threatened to charge a customer $10K for driving an excessive number of miles, even though the rental included unlimited miles. It’s absurd to claim that there’s some arbitrary limit on miles, when the company markets unlimited miles on rentals. It would be easy to create some reasonable limit, or put something in the terms limiting the number of miles, but that’s not the case.
That being said, I am puzzled as to how someone managed to drive 25K miles in 30 days. If he used the car for purposes other than what they were intended then there’s nothing wrong with trying to hold him accountable. However, that’s not what he’s being accused of.
What do you make of this Hertz unlimited miles rental situation?
It seems that there are lot of comments on here from people who mostly fly, and are not hard core road trippers. My wife and I are hard core road trippers, and we have had many days over 833 miles. No, we have not done that for 30 days straight, but it is certainly possible. I have personally driven over 1,080 miles in one day just by myself without switching drivers. I think the biggest...
It seems that there are lot of comments on here from people who mostly fly, and are not hard core road trippers. My wife and I are hard core road trippers, and we have had many days over 833 miles. No, we have not done that for 30 days straight, but it is certainly possible. I have personally driven over 1,080 miles in one day just by myself without switching drivers. I think the biggest issue that might "get the guy" is that there might be something in the contract about required maintenance if you exceed "XXXX" miles. It is possible that he stopped for oil changes at Jiffy Lube or something, but we don't know. Brakes are not likely an issue, as there is relatively little brake use on long highway trips. Hopefully he did a tire rotation or 2 somewhere along the way.
I wonder if the purpose of the rental was to make a cross-country move as cheaply as possible, with the goal of transporting lots of fragile and valuable artifacts (instead of spending a fortune on moving trucks and moving insurance)? With multiple drivers, it's possible to cover a lot of miles during a single day.
In a time in my life, I was on the road alot for my own own personal business (NOT making money)
They also don't say that he could be the only driver. In all of my past agreements I had with this company, I always grabbed the insurance amd checked two drivers nothing in this story said he was a single driver.
Also to get unlimited,YOU PAY for unlimited (Which also) is not in this story
I switched another big name rental company because hertz cars suck bad.
I agree Ben, presumably there was more use of the car, perhaps for commercial reasons.
Our recent rentals in NJ and NY, we found quite a few drivers wanting to rent cars at the counter, for Uber usage.
There's gotta be more to the story. 25,000 miles in a month is literally Los Angeles to El Paso, every day, for thirty days. Probably some stuff that wasn't permitted in the contract, going on, but that's of course just a supposition at this point.
Just a data point - I’ve put about 7,000 miles on Hertz ”unlimited miles” rentals over a 30 day period a couple of times (and ~4k miles over 20-25 days several times) with no issues what so ever.
Oil changes are important, I'm very surprised Ben made ZERO mention of maintenance on the vehicle. Most reasonable people would put maybe 1500 miles tops on that car in a month. For a rental that might be $1200 for a whole month, Hertz likely had 65% of the tire tread wear down, likely more on the drive wheel tires and any resale value expectation is eroded. 10k oil change intervals are way too high to begin with. The $10k charge is absolutely correct to do.
How in the world is it correct? He had UNLIMITED miles and NOTHING saying unlimited meant no more than this many miles a day. I would have sat there until the police arrived, then asked the police to press charges for them trying to fraudulently charge my card. My call the next day would be to a lawyer to sue Hertz or at least that store!!
If maintenance is an issue they should not allow 'unlimited' miles. They should, and likely have factored that in already.
"The $10k charge is absolutely correct to do."
Not if that's not a provision written into the contract, then it's not.
Yeah no. That's not how contracts work. You don't get to retroactively add caveats to an agreement to cover things you didn't have the foresight to consider.
The only recourse Hertz has here is to make the case that the driver had to have used the vehicle in ways NOT actually permitted by the agreement, regardless of the unlimited miles. And that has to be done in a court.
There's likely more to the story here, but that doesn't justify Hertz's action in the moment.
How can a single driver run 25 000 miles in a month? There is more data behind the story posted above.
Good news is small claims court covers up to $10k. Should be easy enough to win that, assuming Hertz can't prove he violated some other part of the contract.
I’m diamond on Delta and get some sort of President’s Circle BS status - after 3 really bad experiences (ask me about them leaving my 80 year old mother in the airport until 0230 saying her rental car was not available and never would be), I swore off Hertz (Alamo, National & Enterprise are consistently great). I hope every member of their C-Suite enjoys burning in hell because after mismanaging a company in such a...
I’m diamond on Delta and get some sort of President’s Circle BS status - after 3 really bad experiences (ask me about them leaving my 80 year old mother in the airport until 0230 saying her rental car was not available and never would be), I swore off Hertz (Alamo, National & Enterprise are consistently great). I hope every member of their C-Suite enjoys burning in hell because after mismanaging a company in such a cruelly incompetent way, that’s where they belong.
The first job employers that I had were corporate clients of Enterprise. I just never had good experiences. Despite eventually getting their top elite status and having a corporate contract, cars were routinely not available despite confirmations, bookings in Europe for an auto transmission were never fulfilled because they didn't have auto transmission cars, or some branches at airports were off-site while the big boys like Hertz were on-site.
I switched to Hertz around...
The first job employers that I had were corporate clients of Enterprise. I just never had good experiences. Despite eventually getting their top elite status and having a corporate contract, cars were routinely not available despite confirmations, bookings in Europe for an auto transmission were never fulfilled because they didn't have auto transmission cars, or some branches at airports were off-site while the big boys like Hertz were on-site.
I switched to Hertz around 2014 or 2015, when the Delta partnership launched. That gave me President's Circle status. For the first couple of years, it was great. Solid treatment, good cars, etc. I remember getting guaranteed rentals, which was a benefit of President's Circle status. I think you needed 48 hours notice. Several times around 2016 and 2017 I was dropped off at the airport after returning the car instead of taking the shuttle. I even had a 10-month rental in 2020 before and during the pandemic when I was on a project for work.
Thankfully, I've never been arrested or anything, unlike other people with Hertz horror stories.
But Hertz has gotten really bad in the last year. Their rates are absurdly expensive, especially for SUVs anywhere in Arizona, Colorado, Utah or Montana. Likely highway robbery. My name is never on the board anymore and the President's Circle aisle has gone way downhill. Several consecutive rentals have been cars with 40,000-plus miles. SiriusXM is almost never activated anymore, even on premium cars. Everyone is President's Circle these days so upgrades are nonexistent. I don't consider a Chevy Malibu an upgrade. And I've had other cases where I've booked a Chevy Tahoe only to receive a Ford Edge with no rate adjustment.
I tried Avis late last year and early this year when they status matched me. Not even a status challenge. But I had two, one-month bookings where I never received points. That was a lot of points. Customer service was useless. So I've stopped using Avis and went back to Hertz.
Has Enterprise gotten any better?
How in the world could you drive 25,000 in a month?
You'd have to be driving 12 hours a day at 70 mph to rack up that much.
It was obviously driven by multiple people for commercial purposes 24/7.
Hertz need to go after him for breaching the contract by using the car for unauthorised purposes, not the excess miles
Yes. Probably multiple people with multiple gig economy apps like a syndicate. Not sure this person wants to be in the spotlight.
No, you "can't go after someone" if you can't prove it.
If the contract says "unlimited miles", the miles are unlimited.
No, you can't go after someone for something the contract clearly permits. You certainly go after someone for something it doesn't.
Without proof, that's tougher to do, but you're also kidding yourself if you think there aren't courts out there that would reasonably accept on the balance of probabilities that driving this much in such a short period isn't realistically possible within the terms of the contract, unlimited miles issue aside (and irrelevant). This is...
No, you can't go after someone for something the contract clearly permits. You certainly go after someone for something it doesn't.
Without proof, that's tougher to do, but you're also kidding yourself if you think there aren't courts out there that would reasonably accept on the balance of probabilities that driving this much in such a short period isn't realistically possible within the terms of the contract, unlimited miles issue aside (and irrelevant). This is a civil case, not a criminal one, and the burden of proof is far less stringent here.
And good thing the agent didn't even discover yet that the guy took the engine out and replaced it with the one from his own clunker!
Do they have language about oil changes for high mile situations? Like if the check engine light or oil change warning comes on, are you required to bring it in. That could be an argument here, that the unlimited miles were put on in a way that severely degraded the car beyond just additional mileage.
Forget the oil, what is the state of the brakes and tires??
Many years ago we rented a car from Hertz and spent a month road tripping from NY to LA and back. Car had 280 mi on it when we got it, and we returned it with about 10,280 mi on it. Agent was surprised, but we had unlimited miles, so no extra charge. Hertz was also probably a more reputable company back then.
Hertz is the one car rental company. I will never use. Had a bad experience in Arizona a few years ago, where there were all sorts of fees added that brought the total rental for two weeks up to an outrageous price.
Fool me once …
Guy needs to find a lawyer. If the contract says unlimited miles then it's unlimited miles. It's up to Hertz to write in verbiage for excessive miles. Personally I have no idea how someone could drive that many miles in one month.
Similar thing happened to me. Rented a car from my local airport in California for a road trip to Arizona. When booking it was advertised as “Unlimited Mileage.”
I drive about 2,800 miles in total. No issues at drop off back at my local airport. About 2 months later I see a $1,400 charge on my Visa from Sixt.
I reached out to Sixt and they pointed out a clause in the several page long...
Similar thing happened to me. Rented a car from my local airport in California for a road trip to Arizona. When booking it was advertised as “Unlimited Mileage.”
I drive about 2,800 miles in total. No issues at drop off back at my local airport. About 2 months later I see a $1,400 charge on my Visa from Sixt.
I reached out to Sixt and they pointed out a clause in the several page long boiler plate that said “unlimited mileage was limited to miles driven in California. If the car is driven out of California at any point then a 50c/mile charge would apply for all miles driven.”
They knew I had left California because they had a GPS tracker in the car.
I got a refund after several months only when threatening to sue them for tracking me in California without disclosing that they were doing so.
Sue them anyway. Email me and I will find you representation pro bono.
Well looks like Hertz owes me $40000. Sure they never signed anything saying so, but they also never signed anything saying they don’t owe me that.
You’re an insufferable chinky moron based on most of your posts, but this was funny.
This is wildly inappropriate
The corporate locations are a better choice over the franchise dealers. Also I owned a vehicle that had a faulty odometer and component issues. Unlikely that was the problem here.
How can one tell if it’s a corporate location vs franchise?
It's actually on the rental agreement. Franchise owner's name is who you are renting from. Corporate says Hertz. Corporate locations usually have a larger inventory. Call and ask.
Can you and your family go to the buffet on Wednesday to drown your sorrows after Kamala loses and stay there for 3 days because it is all you can eat ? Eat through 2 days worth of food truck delivery ? That goes beyond the reasonable premise of all you can eat.
As much as Hertz sucks the renter was not allowed to use the car for commercial reasons and unlimited miles is...
Can you and your family go to the buffet on Wednesday to drown your sorrows after Kamala loses and stay there for 3 days because it is all you can eat ? Eat through 2 days worth of food truck delivery ? That goes beyond the reasonable premise of all you can eat.
As much as Hertz sucks the renter was not allowed to use the car for commercial reasons and unlimited miles is for leisure or business rental. Not 25,000 miles. It would depend on what the make and model of the car is to determine appreciation which would be several thousand dollars.
Most car rental companies can track data on their cars. I am sure they can see when and where the car was driven. If the contract was violated, he is going to lose. Surprised hertz doesn't have an excessive mileage limit written into the contact.
Because as Lucky said the contract was for unlimited so would an excessive mileage limit clause not defeat the purpose of unlimited being written in the contract. How can you have a contract that says unlimited mileage and excessive mileage limit?
"Fair Use" is a common legal principle. Applies to Unlim Data plans on mobile contracts among other things. Common, straighforward, uncontroversial.
I’m not sure you know the difference between a legal principle and your own anus.
Interesting that you brought up mobile contracts.
The FTC said carriers mislead consumers by throttling unlimited data plans and took enforcement action. AT&T settled the case for 60 million dollars and now clearly advertise in bold: "Unlimited talk, text, data + 75GB of high-speed data".
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/11/att-pay-60-million-resolve-ftc-allegations-it-misled-consumers-unlimited-data-promises
"I am puzzled as to how someone managed to drive 25K miles in 30 days. If he used the car for purposes other than what they were intended then there’s nothing wrong with trying to hold him accountable."
What are you suggesting?
I once rented a Hertz car in Florida for one week. I drove to Chicago to pick up a girl friend and drove her to Florida where we drove all over the place. The following weekend I drove her back to Chicago and drove the car back to Florida. That was about 5,000 miles for the week. It can be done. Unless Hertz can prove breach of contract, they have no case.
This doesn't worry me at all, until the story includes Hertz corporate's comment on the case. It's very similar to stories about rogue hotels charging junk fees or refusing to honour elite benefits. I'll say this plainly: if I form an opinion before I know if the Hertz "representative" is rogue, I'm an idiot.
The only explanation is it was used commercially likely 24 hrs a day (multiple people not registered)
And if the contract says no commercial use allowed then it is a violation- of course it is also impossible the amount of Lisa vibes to exactly 10k -
Most modern cars have gps or otter devices to track location
while I agree....and your point is quite likely what happened (multiple drivers etc) That point was (at least in the video) never brought up by Hertz.
BUT... Unlimited is in fact Unlimited. And Hertz went from being a great company to a monstrosity.
Hertz looks terrible here.
I had a similar situation with Budget in France some years ago. I reserved a car with unlimited miles, but they "upgraded" me to a smart car, which apparently was in a separate class and didn't come with unlimited miles. I wasn't told this before I was given the car, and was asked to pay some 3K euros for extra mileage upon return. Luckily in the end it was resolved...
Hertz looks terrible here.
I had a similar situation with Budget in France some years ago. I reserved a car with unlimited miles, but they "upgraded" me to a smart car, which apparently was in a separate class and didn't come with unlimited miles. I wasn't told this before I was given the car, and was asked to pay some 3K euros for extra mileage upon return. Luckily in the end it was resolved and I didn't pay, but it was quite a stressful situation and the language barrier didn't help.
Hertz looks fine here. He is abusing renting a passanger vechile for commercial purposes. You dont drive 25000 miles in a month, then get surprised you are being held accountable for violating the contract. I am sure this will be a negotiated settlement between Hertz's attorney and the customer. A front line CSR is not going to be the final resolution.
How do you know for sure it was used for commercial purposes at this point? The commercial purpose possibility was only a guess on the part of Lucky. And then the guy can use the Hertz representative logic by saying you show me where in the contract does it say that it cannot be used for commercial purposes. Do you work for Hertz as you are so taking the side of Hertz?
@Brian W
I am guessing that you mostly fly. As a serious road tripper. I have driven over 833 miles in a day many times. No, I haven't done it for 30 straight days, but I can imagine some people have.
Hertz should not charge the $10,000.? The executives at Hertz need to focus their time on capitalizing the corporation as much as possible then transferring that capital to the executives’ personal compensation, then file the next bankruptcy
The renter may win the first round with Hertz. He can challenge the 10k charge with his credit card company, and Hertz won’t be able to support it as a charge permitted by the contract. He’ll lose round 2 if Hertz sues him for breach of contract, alleging that he made commercial use of the vehicle. It probably won’t be hard for Hertz to figure that out with some subpoenas. If he breached the contract,...
The renter may win the first round with Hertz. He can challenge the 10k charge with his credit card company, and Hertz won’t be able to support it as a charge permitted by the contract. He’ll lose round 2 if Hertz sues him for breach of contract, alleging that he made commercial use of the vehicle. It probably won’t be hard for Hertz to figure that out with some subpoenas. If he breached the contract, he’ll owe Hertz the diminution of car value plus their attorney’s fees.
It won't be worth anyone's time going to court for $10k. Most likely Hertz just lets this go.
Hertz would need some sort of tangible evidence that it was used for commercial purposes (assuming this is even a violation of the contract).
Whenever companies whine about regulations hitting their quarterly earnings, it's important to remember that this is the sort of sh*t they'll do when they aren't regulated.
What I don’t understand is how a some airport board or authority, who rent space to Hertz as a concessionaire, hasn’t taken action? Likewise, I don’t understand how some state attorney general or a state consumer protection division hasn’t taken action. There have been so many documented incidents here.
I also don’t understand how airlines continue to partner with Delta or companies continue to use Hertz for their employee rentals.
I rent from hertz regularly, and find their service fine. They get me in/out quickly, rates are competitive, and vechiles are relatively new. I avoid Avis/Budget due to their lines and often older vechiles. Still surprised Avis/Budget uses dot matrix printers.
Yeah I was going to say the same. I rent from Hertz 3-4 times per month and have zero issues.
Funny enough an advertisement for Avis celebrated that they were number 2 and not as popular as Hertz so their lines were shorter. Ran in the 90’s as we studied it in marketing class.
Brian W. - I laugh every time I rent from AVIS/BUDGET and see them use those Dot matrix printers. While they are usually the cheapest in our town (we only have Hertz, Enterprise, and them), the thing I hate the most is that when you check their rates, they do not show you the total cost upfront; you have to go to subsequent screens to get the total price.
I have also rented from...
Brian W. - I laugh every time I rent from AVIS/BUDGET and see them use those Dot matrix printers. While they are usually the cheapest in our town (we only have Hertz, Enterprise, and them), the thing I hate the most is that when you check their rates, they do not show you the total cost upfront; you have to go to subsequent screens to get the total price.
I have also rented from all the majors plus worked at a rental car company myself when I was first out of college and have always had good experiences with Hertz.